


Drift Into You

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [112]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Not!Fic, Pacific Rim!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 08:52:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1220143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a half fic/half-not fic, putting it here so i can find it again.  Based off this photo (http://akireyta.tumblr.com/post/61880564203/as-jaeger-copilots-can-you-imagine-imagine).  What if the kaiju came in the 1930s instead?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

imagine, for a moment, instead of Hitler invading Poland, it was Trespasser climbing ashore that triggered the biggest war ever.  Esp. since this was pre-nukes.

Imagine that the supersoldier program was designed to address the fact that so few people were up to the task of co-pilot — they can churn out jaegers faster than they can train pilots (like with the spitfire — keeping up the pilot feed was as much a problem as keeping up the flow of planes).

They wanted a corps of jaeger pilots.  They got Steve — not even a pair.  Useless.

Then Steve met Peggy, who cleared for the program, but who still wasn’t flying because no other (male) pilot would even give her a chance.

Steve?  Steve has no problems drifting with a woman.  Together, in the brand new experimental Mark IV jaeger  _Captain America,_  designed by (only slightly) mad genius billionare playboy engineer Howard Stark, they might yet turn the tide of the first truly World War.


	2. Chapter 2

”I know some of what that feels like, having every door shut in your face.” The ride to the facility is easier, after that, and they talk in low voices about the pilot corp, about her getting incredible drop scores and still not being able to suit up because she needs a co-pilot. Someone she can trust with what they might share in the drift. She helps Steve out of the car and he smiles and doesn't shrug away from her touch. 

Peggy watches the team strap the skinny, sweet kid into the machine, fists clenched at her side.  She didn’t know if she wanted him to succeed ( _copilot_ , a tiny, seductive bell chimed in the back of her mind), or not.  Steve was so…well, sweet.  Sweet and good, and she was afraid that if this worked, all that might pay the price in this headlong quest to make him a Ranger.

The machine hummed and the dials climbed, and…and then Steve was  _screaming._   Peggy ran out of the viewing room, the guardrail of the platform slamming into her stomach as she almost threw herself over the edge.  ”SHUT IT DOWN!” she yelled.

Over the chaos of the surgical floor, Peggy heard Steve’s voice.  ”No!  No, I can do this!!”

Peggy swallowed hard but held her tongue.  She’d known him for no time at all, yet it was already an instinct to trust him.  The metal of the guard rail warmed under her deathgrip as the machine tilted and opened like a flower.

It had worked.  Peggy forced herself to peel her fingers off the railing.  She took the steps down carefully, pushing through the ants nest of nurses and technicians.  Up close, she had to tilt her head back to look at the familiar face.

Peggy’s fingers were reaching, touching warm skin, feeling the beat of Steve’s heart, before she could stop herself.  She yanked it back, and snatched a towel off a passing nurse.

She hoped,  _prayed_  in a way she hadn’t since Trespasser had first made landfall, that Steve hadn’t changed completely.


	3. Chapter 3

Peggy’s starting to feel like this might actually happen, that she might actually get to pilot a jaeger.  The General’s started to come around to it — she knows there would always be a part of the old man who’s first instinct would be to pat her on the head, but she respected him still because he forced his actions past that to trust  _her._ He’d started to make vague, demurring noises rather than a flat no when she raised the idea of adding her own name to the testing schedule.  Steve’s preliminary scores were through the roof, and Peggy couldn’t shake the feeling that they shared a rhythm, one that might just sync up enough to pilot a jaeger.  

Maybe even the one that Peggy wasn’t officially meant to know that Howard was building.  But Howard had left the plans on his desk, knowing she could read upside down, and Peggy finally knew where her path was leading.

She turned the corner and found Steve locked at the lips with one of the WRENS.  

Everything screeched to a halt.  ”Captain Rogers!”  she snapped.  He stumbled back like a scolded schoolboy, an excuse already on his tongue.  She drew herself to her full height.  ”Howard’s ready for you.”  She turned and stalked away.

Steve caught up with her before she’d gone a dozen paces, falling into an easy step with her.  ”Peggy, I, um, she…” he winced, hunching his shoulders a little, and Peggy felt a pang, missing the small, quiet man she’d escorted to the Brooklyn facility.

She stopped right in front of the doors, aware of the guards watching them both.  Steve dipped his chin and met her eye.  ”You really don’t have any bloody idea how to talk to a woman, do you?”  She shook her head and strode on into the engineering suite.  She heard Howard sweep in and claim Steve’s attention before he could catch up to her again.

Peggy left them to it, Howard babbling about suits and shields, and went to see if the test floor was ready for candidate testing tomorrow.  The bo was a heavy, grounding weight in her hand, and she twirled the staff one before catching and holding it parallel to her body in a perfect salute.

"Peggy!"  she turned, holding her place, the bo in an easy grip by her side, as Steve held up his arms, fitted with gauntlets, part of the new suit designs that Howard had been babbling about all week.  "What do you think?"

Peggy moved, the bo humming as she brought it down hard enough to make the wood flex.  From under where he’d raised his arms defensively, Steve gave her a wide-eyed look.  Peggy ignored it, letting the pole slide through her fingers as she brought it around and up.  Another sharp, hard  _snap_  echoed through the room as the bo connected.  Again, and again, and again, Peggy attacked and Steve defended, letting her lead him back across the room, through the narrow passage between the work tables.

The whole room was watching as he finally caught the bo between clawed hands, arms crossed and braced, his pinkie fingers almost hooked around each other, like he was expecting her to try and yank her weapon back.  Peggy stayed still, eyes locked with Steve.

"Agent Carter, Captain Rogers!"  They both stepped back, snapping to attention as General Phillips stalked towards them.  Peggy watched him toss Steve another bo.  "Stark, get Agent Carter fitted with gauntlets."  He finally turned to them.  "You two, I want you on the testing floor in five."  He met her eye.  "Agent Carter, I’m taking a chance on you.  Don’t let me down."

She nodded, once, then Howard’s team was pulling her away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (A/N - Bucky dies in this one)

"You look good."  Steve ducked his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he fiddled with some small detail of his rig. It’s the first thing he’s said to her since the compatibility check, since the WREN, since everything turned upside down. Peggy tilted her head and moved, a little self-consciously, to check her own gear.

The flight suit doesn’t sit naturally yet, the way it’s bolted around her both less and more familiar than she expected after the training sims, and the way Steve moves, stop-start, told her that he’s having the same problem.  It relaxed her, a little, made it easier to concentrate.

"Anything I need to know?" she asked him as the technicians finally retreat, leaving them alone in the  _Cap’s_  con.  It’s a neutral question — they’re still on comms, after all.  But she needed to know.

Steve looked up again, his hand still gently curved around the strut of his rig, a strangely gentle curve for the metal gloves.  ”Do you even need to ask?  You’re gonna be in my head in a minute.”

Peggy licked her lips, dry already in the sealed air of her suit.  ”It seemed polite to ask.”

Steve’s still chuckling to himself when General Phillips calls the one minute countdown.  Through her helmet, she can hear Steve breathing, slow and even, and she counted the beats, steadying herself as Howard called it.

Then the Drift washed over her.  Her last clear, coherent, solitary thought is that the simulators don’t do  _crap_  to prepare you for this.  Then she was caught in the Drift, free-falling through images and feelings and memories familiar and strange — a mother’s smile, a house in flames, the wash of seawater like tears.  

There was a spike, a flare, and Peggy felt Steve’s mind flash by her, a sharkfin in water, and she turned instinctively to follow.

"Agent Carter!" A voice was yelling from somewhere.  Headsets.  Coms.  Right.  

She grit her teeth and tried to find her equilibrium.  "Steve!" she called, hoping he’d come back.  In her ear was a babble of voices, mixing and ebbing with the flow of memories.  RABIT.  Right.  Of course.

The training, the texts, the procedure was to anchor and wait.  Peggy knew in her guts if she followed protocol she’d never see Steve again.  She turned and dived after that memory of silver.

She landed, boots heavy on cracked asphalt.  In the distance, she could hear children at play, voices talking.  No people to be seen, though.  Just brick walls and rubbish bins, any back alley in any town.

Running feet, the sound louder than it should be.  Two boys, one big and one small, one dark-haired and the other sandy blonde, skidded around the corner.  The bigger boy pushed the smaller one down to huddle behind the bins.  Peggy took a step forward as she hear the smaller boy’s laboured, difficult breathing, echoing oddly with memory.

No, not memory.  Steve was panting in his suit, gasping for air his serum-enhanced body had no difficulty drawing.  Vaguely, Peggy was aware of alarms going off, pulse and blood pressure and heart rate.

Steve huddled down, skinny arms hugging himself, as the other boy paced away, standing firm and proud in the middle of the alleyway.  

Peggy took another step closer to the shivering boy, curled up by a rusted bin.  ”Steve?  Steve, can you hear me?  This is just a memory.  It’s in the past.  You’re okay.”

She looked up at the sound of shouts.  The fight, four boys on one, seemed out of time, like a film skipping through the reel.  It sped back up again as the dark-haired boy, Steve’s childhood friend, went tumbling backwards, his head making a wet, awful noise as it cracked against a half-brick left with all the other rubbish.

Steve staggered to his feet, his asthma already turning his lips blue.  He swayed on his feet as he lifted his eyes to the four bullies standing, outlined in silhouette in the opening of the alley.  As Steve raised his shaking finger to point at them, Peggy heard the hum and beep of weapons systems initializing, Howard’s voice echoing and mingling with those on the street beyond before being swallowed in the memory again. 

"Steve. Please.  Listen to me.  Come home."  Her voice shook slightly, but she forced herself to stay still.  She wanted to reach for him, but he needed to come with her.  "Please.  Come home."

She blinked as the Drift evaporated.  The gloves made her clumsy as she tore at her restraints, stumbling the three feet that separated them.  

Steve was blinking awake, his arm still outstretched, the suit glowing its weapons ready status.  He lowered it with a careful slowness before looking up at her, eyes wide and wet.

He didn’t speak. Neither did she.  Outside, she could hear Howard’s team scrambling to undo the bolts that sealed them into the connpod.

The rig creaked quietly as Steve hung his head.  ”So now you know,” he said with a quiet, disgusted snort.  ”You lost…” he turned away, and Peggy swallowed hard as she realized what Steve had seen on his way down the rabbithole.  ”And I’m afraid of some ten year old bullies.”

Peggy glanced over as the first shaft of light made it through the opening hatch.  ”Not all monsters come from the deep,” she told him.  Her gloved hand touched his, just for a moment, before she stepped forward to intercept Howard and his men, to give Steve a few more seconds to regroup.


End file.
